Because I've spent the past week immersed in a collection of essays and rants entitled Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, I'm a bit bemused but increasingly annoyed by the babble from adults about tweenie star Justin Bieber.

I heard him on radio dismissed with the self-damning line from a commentator, “I'd never heard of him until the other day”.
Well, isn't that true of everything? You have to hear about something a first time.

But the subtext here is, “He can't be any good because I haven't heard of him”.

Hmmm.

I don't come here to praise or bury Bieber --- but only to defend the right of kids to scream at whomever they want. Beatlemania was fun, if deafening, and Bieber-fever seems much the same: if you a 13-year old girl.

Bieber seems cute and smart and fun – and if he has a song called Baby (with Ludacris) here and another called Eeenie Meenie then his is a grand tradition which goes back through Yummy Yummy, Sugar Sugar, Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Da Doo Ron Ron and many more songs with such titles.

Add your own alliterative titles and reductive lyrics from the catalogue of the Ramones if you will.

To hear people on talkback – or whatever the one is which pretends to be slightly more highbrow that that -- bang on about what a no-talent this guy is just makes me angry. Then again – because my current reading also includes the David (Partridge Family) Cassidy autobiography Get Happy, which is anything but – I am right now listening to a three record set entitled SuperBubble (pink cover, The Turtles! Tommy Roe!! The Ohio Express!!!) which I scored at Real Groovy last year for $5.

So maybe this disqualifies me from being an adult and having an adult approach to vacuous and disposable pop. But here's the thing: love or hate bubblegum – and I am not disposed to much of it myself – it proved much more durable than a lot of other music of its period. Like gum, it sort of stuck to the bottom of your shoe/brain.

We'd be unwise to dismiss Bieber in the same breath as others who got screamed at by young girls (and boys) because in that list you'd start with Frank Sinatra and have to include John Lennon, Mick'n'Keith, Scott Walker, Madonna and many more who had creditable careers when the tumult and the shouting died.

And as my borrowed book – subtitled The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears -- tells me, there is a lot more going on in this music than just stripping pop to its essence, laying in simple lyrics (you think Chewy Chewy is simple, it's about fellatio, right?) and keeping it short so it gets more radio play.

And it is a dark world in many ways: as I am sure I have mentioned before here I once interviewed tween idol Tiffany who was 16 at the time – and suing her parents.

I also spent a day with with the young Billie (later to become Billie Piper) and she was lovely – although I had more in common with her dad of course who was trying to negotiate the difficult waters for his daughter. (She later married a much older DJ, so I guess he failed.)

So maybe someone should slip Bieber a copy of the Cassidy book by way of saying “Beware, Dangerous Rapids Ahead”. That would be useful than banging on about what a no-talent he is (and he isn't, actually.)

So I'm glad Bieber came here and flushed out the grumpy old buggers (who have forgotten what it is like to be young) and let girls scream their lungs out.

They are only young once and soon enough they will have to be dealing with the Resource Management Act, whether those godawful sheds are “historic” and just what a tax form is like. Boring adult stuff in other words.

I'm not saying we need more Biebers – like John Cale said when asked if there as too much evil in the world: “There's exactly the right amount” – but as the great cosmic wheel turns he's done nothing so far but bring fun into the lives of kids – and perhaps gouged their wallets a little.

No harm done. Nothing to see here, folk. Just move along.

Enough of that: Anyone care to stab at a translation of this? It was the opening paragraph of NZPA report which appeared in the Herald the other day and, to me, shows just what happens when spoken sports vernacular is put into print.
“New Zealand's Terenzo Bozzone was too quick on the half-marathon leg to secure victory in the Texas half-ironman in Galveston yesterday”.

If you are confused by how come he was “too quick . . . to secure victory” so was I. It means he won. Hmmm.

Finally: No bubblegum pop at Elsewhere right now (well, maybe just a little under From the Vaults here which is an ever-expanding section of one-off songs with a background story) but there is Frank Zappa reading The Talking Asshole section from William Burrough's The Naked Lunch.

And swags of new music reviewed here including a new album by Roky Erickson who lost his marbles in the late Sixties but is back with Okkervil River. It's very moving. So maybe that restores some music.cred?

Oh-oh. Time to turn the album over. Cool, Yummy Yummy Yummy opens side two.

56 responses to this post

Good column. I like a bit of teen-pop mania as well so I didn't mind the (what felt like) half an hour 3 News gave Bieber last night.

But I suspect there's a bit more to the we'd-never-heard-of-him factor. If Simon Reynolds and other critics are right -- and I think they are -- about how the rock/pop mainstream has fragmented into many self-sufficient genres, and will fragment more and more with the way the industry is changing, then someone can be a huge act for teens without anyone your age or mine ever hearing of them. I imagine that people in their 30s and 40s had at least heard of The Beatles, The Osmonds, Bay City Rollers, Jackson Five, and so on in the 60s and 70s. Media was so much more monolithic and music had few outlets.

My first love was David Cassidy - I felt some what guilty replacing his poster in pride of place on my bedroom wall with that of Donny Osmond - but goshdarnit I was gonna marry Donny, after all!

(I made sure there was no competition in our family as to who actually was going to marry Donny by graciously allowing my younger sister to claim Jimmy as her very own. How generous of me!)

Later it was the Bay City Rollers (of course! who could resist the cut-off jeans with tartan edging - and the stripey socks beneath!). My God we were so stylish back then. Derek the blonde drummer was my fave - followed closely by Woody, the cute young one.

After that I had an ongoing dalliance with some of the glam rock boys - Sweet, Slade, Mud et al (Bowie and T-Rex were a little grown-up for me, however)...

As far as I can see, the best talent on Justin Bieber's videos is black.

Which is not to say that seeing a bit of teeny girl hysteria ("We ran until I died of exhaustion!" made me smile) isn't refreshingly sweet - Justin Bieber is almost (but OMG!!! just that bit older ) their age and his delivery is pitch perfect to his demographic. he is a youtube discovery, and the fact he he came to NZ shows someone is milking young Mr. Beiber's fifteen minutes for every dollar they can get. My 14 year old niece certainly thinks he is a total dish.

People who dismiss him may need reminding that they are not the intended audience.

Relax Russell, it wasn't you. I didn't hear your similar comment, the one I heard was delivered with a sniff of derision by some woman. Context is all.

And I agree Tom: I constantly remind people who dump on Britney etc that I really have no opinion because she doesn't make music for me. Nor do the feelers -- but I don't want them to cease to exist. They are there for the pleasure of others.

As long as no one puts a gun to my head and says "you should listen to this" (as the alt.people are wont to do) or makes out some kind of music is morally superior to another (and don't classical folks just presume that?!) then we should just let a thousand styles and artists flourish.

Young Master Bieber will not trouble me. But I love to see people --- of whatever age -- enjoy whatever their music is.

I heard him on radio dismissed with the self-damning line from a commentator, "I'd never heard of him until the other day".Well, isn't that true of everything? You have to hear about something a first time.

But the subtext here is, "He can't be any good because I haven't heard of him".

I heard Hilary Barry make the comment. She hadn't heard of him before and then he is the lead story on TV3 News. Apparently newsreaders should know everything.

I took my daughter (who is right into the whole Justin Bieber thing) to Lady Gaga. It was a fantastic show, and a real contrast to the Pixies the night before.

Anyway, a good friend was holding her 40th in our back yard that night, with a fair number of guests I didn't know. And I'm, like, "Lady Gaga Rocks" and some guy said to me "Yeah, but she was rubbish."

After that I had an ongoing dalliance with some of the glam rock boys - Sweet, Slade, Mud et al (Bowie and T-Rex were a little grown-up for me, however)...

...who all, incidentally, have all received fairly extensive reissues and fulsome appreciations from Mojo magazine at some point.

Which I guess goes to show that even the ephemeral has a significant half-life. I'm more of a Bowie and T-Rex man though.

For what it's worth, I guess this one baffles me because it's the first time a teen artist became absolutely massive without me even knowing about him. As I'm 26 years of age, it was bound to eventually happen to me. I kept up with the play being a music reviewer, but I've been pretty slack over the last couple of years.

Whether or not it's not "for me" is beside the point- I hadn't heard of him! I guess I'm officially old.

Regarding Britney, I've always been disappointed by her music. Even with the best production team in the world, she still manages not to put any real personality into her work. Especially compared to the late Aaliyah, who became a conduit for Timbaland and Missy Elliott's best production, or Kelis, for that matter. A (sometimes literally) wasted opportunity. Maybe she didn't know what she was given.

The two girls who stole his hat at the airport are students of my beloved. As Josephine said, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry--especially as they were bunking off school to engineer the hat theft.

It's a bit like Twilight isn't it? I find Stephanie Meyer barely literate and downright creepy, but I'm not a twelve year-old girl and I'm not supposed to get it.

Having said that, I'm not Joni Mitchell convinced that Madonna marked the brain death of Western civilization. (On a tangent, her one-sided feud with Bob Dylan is the most interesting thing either have done in three decades.) I love me some tasty fizzy bubblegum pop -- and its much harder than it looks. I was just rather bemused that he'd turned into the Beatles redux out of nowhere I was aware of.

And is it just me or were Beiber and Hit-Girl separated at birth. I'm just waiting until his stylist decides its time to get "edgy" and he pipes "Ok you Cunts….Let's see what you can do now" at a heaving throng of tweenie-boppers.

The two girls who stole his hat at the airport are students of my beloved. As Josephine said, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry--especially as they were bunking off school to engineer the hat theft.

I would compliment them on their considerable dash and enterprise together with their mature assessment of the post-hiest threat environment. I would encourage them to make these qualities the subject of the essay they will be writing during their detention.

I think it's more that she didn't have any genuine personality in the first place.

That's probably the truth of the matter.

@Danielle- yeah, I'll concede that "Toxic" works. Actually, it was reminds me of the first time I listened to f Sweedish pop star Robyn's s/t record (thankyou, free promos!). Musically, it was pretty similar- if sleeker and less brazen-to a lot of the stuff Britney gets given, but it was so knowing that it practically commented on itself mid-song. It's a curious record, like she desperately wanted to be a star but felt she needed to explain herself. Which might have been something to do with the fact she was/is a bit older (mid-20s) than her contemporaries as well as having already faied once in the gig.

I also spent a day with with the young Billie (later to become Billie Piper) and she was lovely – although I had more in common with her dad of course who was trying to negotiate the difficult waters for his daughter. (She later married a much older DJ, so I guess he failed.)

She seems to have done pretty well for herself since, mind. I'm looking for a nautical analogy to go with your "difficult waters" comment, but I can't think of any!

A great blog entry. You put into words the fond feelings I had when I saw the excited girls talking about their idol. And it was intriguing that the whole thing built up without my hearing about it. Now that I'm not teaching I miss out on a lot of that pop culture and I miss it.

To their credit, some of the girls were conscious of the phenomenon they were experiencing. Can't remember the words ...

And Bieber is like, soooo cute. And he was discovered on Youtube - thanks to his mother!!!

He seems way more talented than most of the bubblegum popacts NZoA have funded in the last 10 years. We don't do bubblegum that well and can't possibly compete with the foreign muck. So why bother ?

Why structure video/music funding to cater for groups/artist who will try to make that shit just to get the funding and why perpetuate that system with little or no allowance for how the internet has levelled the playing field compared to how it was 10 yrs ago ?

Why is NZon Airs raison d'etre to continually fund sub standard shit to play between the ads on commercial radio/tv. Fuck radio, fuck ads, fuck insipid bubblegum pop and fuck those clowns at NZoA treating us like dumbed down peasants who think we can't choose what we want to listen to and see ourselves.

BTW...Yes it's that time already. Time to bust out your cheap and nasty oven element inspired t shirts/carry bags and show your support for the joke that is NZon Air' and the Music Commission's Music month.

Welcome to NZ groundhog day for 30 days of the same shit trudged out year after year by the same faces. Grind that shit up, pour it into a trough and let the pigs swill around it for 30 days. Viva la formula.

...*yawn* Go hard...get those stats, count them beans, tick them boxes, kiss that arse, show the overlords you're worthy of another year at the trough

Robbie -- you would have agreed with Vicki Anderson's great opinion piece in the paper this morning? Eg:

just what is happening at NZ On Air? While the funding schemes available are appreciated by those who use them, just when is this government going to get around to chucking a few "funding advisers" and their labelmate buddies off this gliding- on-type gravy train?

They really are taking the mick.

It's well and truly time for new blood. If any organisation needs a shake-up and a good prodding by a group of bureacrats with calculators, NZ On Air is it.

Yay...now if a few more old school music heavyweights in the media/blogosphere would say what they actually thought in public rather than fear losing their VIP status to insider gigs and free lunches.

Its time for Brendan Smyth to go. Start at the top, take the redundancy broom and clear out the deadweight at NZoA.

Fuck it. Why do we give a shit about justin bieber and allow ourselves to be distracted from the real issue ?

These clowns at NZoA and the music commish have been pissing up our money, funding their own private tastes and palling up to commercial interests while funding themselves to junket "conferences" overseas for years.